Nitrate Problems

[Demogarr]

sighhhhh, I am sick of fighting with the nitrates. I want some opinions. The tank currently, 110 high, 29 gallon sump, 10 gallon refuge, set up in feb-march, Moved around May, ~150 pounds LR, a 5 inch DSB, most of the rock is from my older tanks, dumped into the new one. I can't get my nitrates to settle below 10ppm, and they slowly climb, I have been doing weekly 30-40 gallon changes. Last week I did a major change so I could put some pvc support in the DSB to support LR and hopefully get the DSB processing and "sink"ing some of this crap, hehe. Anyway, got nitrates down to 5 ppm, by the end of the week they were up to 10, and a couple of days later up near 20, they haven't been this high in my memory, and the corals are upset. I have a "marker" coral that lets me know when anything is out of control by not displaying polyps, and that is when I change the water. It has spiked, and I thought something died, all fish accounted for, two snails accounted for, part of the newly split cucumber accounted for, maybe other half is dead and this is the reason, I don't know. Maybe the 4"pvc thrust into the sand disturbed the already not mature dsb, not sure. I only made 5 tubes for support. The dsb is around 5 months of undisturbed maturity, shouldn't I be getting some nitrate reduction by now, or should I be more patient?? Maybe bioload? I have two small false perculas, one small sixline wrasse, one medium foxface, and one medium copperband butterfly. Didn't seem like too much to me. I have moved almost all soft corals to another tank, so this is mainly hard corals and one clam, not many corals at this point. I could move all fish to the other tank, if I thought it would help. The other tank is a few months old, has a small trigger, a yellow tang, two baby maroon clowns and a fu man chu lionfish, and nitrates haven't gone over 5 ppm yet, and that tank gets fed a LOT. No Dsb in that tank though, and I vacume the sand that is there. I feed the 110 tank in question VERY LITTLE. Has the dsb just not started yet, or any other opinions. I use ro/di water, test it with a tds meter, change filters religiously, water here is relatively clean anyway. I dose Kalkwasser in a sealed five gallon bucket hooked up to a float valve.
Sorry so long, but weekly siphon fests are getting old.
The only reason I haven't yanked the dsb is because I don't want a bare bottom and I can't decide what else I want to do for substrate. Maybe the dsb is the cause and not the cure?? It was set up in February, but then yanked completely out and put back in May when I had to move. Anyway, all opinions welcome.
Tommorow after lab I will be changing and siphoning all day, yeah!!

[Demogarr]

if it helps, the dimensions of the tank are 48x18x30 and lighted by 2 400 watt 10000k ushio, and 3 vho 110 watts each. Refugium lighted by a 75 watt vho.

[Python73]

Wow, where to begin. Okay, first off... what are you feeding that lion and trigger? Without that answer, I'm guessing that you have high nitrates because of your fish load. Those two fish without the others mentioned are typically fish-only fish.

But ignoring the fish / feeding issue for now, why don't you use macro algae for nitrate removal? Heck, a simple 5 gallon bucket full of chaetomorpha or caulerpa and a cheap Home Depot light that is plumbed in line with your sump will kill those nitrates in a week or two.

S !

[cyberchef]

I'm guessing here but I'll bet your getting nitrates/detritus/phosphates leaching out of your old rock. You said

"The tank currently, 110 high, 29 gallon sump, 10 gallon refuge, set up in feb-march, Moved around May, ~150 pounds LR, a 5 inch DSB, most of the rock is from my older tanks, dumped into the new one. "

and this is causing the nitrate spikes (read as the equivilant of uncured rock). I would suggest that you could try removing some of your rock in batches and place it in a rubbermaid brute with heater, PH and some light and do water changes and possibly even skim for a m,onth or so until the LR stops releasing/dumping detritus. If you take older LR from a system, place it in a Bare Bottom tank with a heater, PH and new ASW, and watch it. You'll see over time that detritus will build up on the bottom of the tank even tho your not feeding and there are no fish/corals in the tank. This is from the LR purging itself of built up/stored nutrients in the LR and the bacteria processing it. If you adding anything to this tank it will only take longer for the LR to purge itself as it will also have to handle the bioload of the added nutrients. HTH.

[Demogarr]

You misunderstood Python73, the trigger and lionfish are in another tank that DOESN"T have nitrate problems, just throwing that out there because I couldn't figure out why my heavily loaded tank is better off than my mature one, though that probably answers my question right there. I should have just left that out, I knew it would cause a misunderstanding.
Cyberchef, yes almost half rock is from my older systems, 70-80 pounds of it at least, the other 80-90 was bought from Premium Aquatics, uncured Marshall Island, and was cured for a month in tubs, but the original did go through a lot and could be "purging" itself as you say, I am not sure if I can remote the rocks or not, something to chew on though, thanks for the reply!
I do have caulerpa in the 10 gallon refuge, and some halimeda.
It really got worse after I added the copperband and foxface, the only new additions, though they have been in there a couple of months now, so these new additions may have tipped the scales. I am planning on reducing the bioload of the foxface and copperband for a little while, and will continue on with the water changes, but I don't have an extra skimmer or the lighting to remote any rock at this time, I will try to figure something out, the purging explanation sounds the most feasable at this time.
Other takers??

[Python73]

Halimeda is the worst algae I can think of for nitrate export. It is a slow grower (comparatively) and eats cacium. Ditch it for some fast growing caulerpa or chaetomorpha.

S !

[cyberchef]

Is the tank new or used? It sounds, to some extent, that your system is not ramping up to handle the bioload. If the 2 fish have been in the tank fopr a couple of months now then that should have ben sufficient time for the bacteria levels to increase to handle the extra load. At this point I would not remove them,adding them to the other tank might only cause problems for it as well.

Since it's not feasable to remove any of the rock I would continue with the water changes and testing till the levels drop. Also if you have a sump, put filter floss in the sump and use a baster or PH to blow off the LR as well as the SB and allow the filter floss to catch the detritus. Removing the detritus will also help to lower the trates in the water column.

As far as Algae is concerned, I would get away from the calupera and go with chateomorpha or gracilaria due to them being multicelled plants (calupera is a single celled plant, whether the strand is 1" or 24" it is still all one single large cell) as well as they are not as aggressive or toxic as calupera. Although halemida ia going to suck up calcium it is still a good algae overall as well as being a "safe" algae.

[Demogarr]

The tank itself is new, and I am not sure if I had nitrates all along or if the two new fish tipped the scales, because I got my new salifert nitrate test kit right after I put in the new additions. This kit is way more sensitive/accurate than the test I was using, so it may have been there all along. They are in the other tank for a day or two until I figure out what to do with them, I really like the copperband, so he will stay because I know aiptasia is still lurking somewhere.and a couple of weeks in the other tank will let him get what little aiptasia there is bound to be in that system, the foxface was going back to the lfs anyway. Maybe a few weeks with the big fish gone, my system will settle down and I will just wait to add the copperband back in for awhile. I don't want a lot of fish in the hard coral tank anyway. If they didn't freak out so much, I would "loan" the copperband to my buddy with an aptasia problem, but I don't want to take any chances, moving him to the other tank worried me enough.

[reiple]

How is nitrate processed? If I recall it right, sulfur spots in the deep sand bed do the work (the "unnecessary" sulfur chamber of the plenum setup does the same thing) and algae farming (or mud refugium or algae tanks). If you siphon the dsb "often" then you defeat the sulfur factories (the rotten egg smell when sand is disturbed) when you do so. Also once this nitrate processing system is working, an algae refugium could furthur help.

good luck!
(remember algae has to be removed for the nitrate/nutrient export system to work. You add food/light, you must remove algae and do wc)

[tims]

if the levels keep clibing up could try "chemi- cleen" not sure of spelling. it helps with nitrite and nitrate level and even red cyto. but you must do at least a 20% WC aftera week. it is reef safe. i used it once before and had no problems. this is only a quick fix not the long term answer. sinc ei use CC and not SB i have no idea what it would do if anything to the SB

[cyberchef]

Chemi clean is an antibiotic/antibacterial agent that kills off cyano "Bacteria"... It is also a broad spectrum anti-bacteria agent that is non-selective in the bacteria it will kill, meaning it will kill of good bacteria as quickly as bad. It is also been known to cause bleaching/death in SPS corals (I know from first hand experience). It does not remove cyano bacteria it only kills it off temporarily. It is not freindly to niter bacteria or nitrosomus bacteria (denitrifying bacteria) nor is it ovrly freindly to macro algaes... It will not remove or help reduce nitrates in your system and it doesn't care what king of SB or substrate you are using.

Check out this thread

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/sh...5&pagenumber=1

If you would like to use a product that is reef safe to help your system get it's good bacteria ramped up try "Microbe Lift" , "Special Blend". It is nitrsomas bacteria and niter bacteria. The company that makes it specializes in culturing bacteria for various uses such as water treatment plants. I've used it, it is reef safe as it does not contain antibiotics or chemicals, just good bacteria that will help with increasing your denitrifying bacteria.

http://www.microbelift.com/ecolab.html

http://www.microbelift.com/homeaquarium.html#